![]() ![]() Once received into the Forbidden City, however, she is ignored by the emperor - who, after all, has several thousand other consorts to occupy him. ![]() ![]() There they are sheltered by Cixi's uncle until she restores the family's fortunes by being selected as one of Emperor Hsien Feng's legion of concubines. Written by a woman, narrated by Cixi herself, the novel turns the last empress into a dignified, discreet sovereign, holding her country together in the face of foreign invasion, dissolute emperors and scheming courtiers.īorn into a declining gentry family in 1835, the 16-year-old Cixi travels to Beijing with her widowed mother, brother and sister. (Deeply perturbed, China's rulers - all of them men - soon weighed in to criticise the show's historical heresies.) Empress Orchid is a further, feminist step on the road to her rehabilitation. Last year, Chinese television aired a hit drama series about the last years of the Qing dynasty, in which viewers were flabbergasted to see Cixi portrayed as "a nice person". But the tide of opinion now seems to be turning for the last empress. ![]()
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